Back in the day Smash Hit's was a pretty good read. The early issues featured the likes of The Jam, Pil, The Specials, The Vapours etc on the front cover. Back then articles in the NME often read like university thesis, while Smash Hits was snappy and to the point.

I'm pretty sure they were one of the first of the mark to publish an interview with the Fun Boy Three.

Back in the day Smash Hit's was a pretty good read. The early issues featured the likes of The Jam, Pil, The Specials, The Vapours etc on the front cover. Back then articles in the NME often read like university thesis, while Smash Hits was snappy and to the point.

I'm pretty sure they were one of the first of the mark to publish an interview with the Fun Boy Three.

You're right about the NME articles too, though Melody Maker had its pretentious moments. I remember buying it back in '80 and needing a thesaurus and the Encyclopedia Britannica just to understand their review of 'Lip Up Fatty'. Don't even ask what they said about Can-Can._________________Piano music page on Facebook:

The News section of the NME was always good. And they had the best mail order section of all the music weekly’s. When it came to the main articles I can recall skipping over them until such times as I seen quotes from the band members themselves. All the rest was usually just gibberish, or at least that is how it appeared to me at the time._________________Richard Eddington is innocent.

The News section of the NME was always good. And they had the best mail order section of all the music weekly’s. When it came to the main articles I can recall skipping over them until such times as I seen quotes from the band members themselves. All the rest was usually just gibberish, or at least that is how it appeared to me at the time.

It was journalism for journalists with masters' degrees. There was a lot of mental 'master-bation' going on._________________Piano music page on Facebook:

They had a unique sound with lots of influences, so understandably they would have felt calling their music 'ska' kind of pigeon-holed them. I'd say the same applies to the output of all the other 2 tone bands. Ska was a convenient label for marketing purposes, and just about everything gets reduced to soundbytes._________________Piano music page on Facebook:

2 Tone was just another interpretation of the ska sound. It took the basic beat and added a huge dollop of punk in either sound or in sensibility. No more so than The Beat. They owed as much to Buzzcocks and they did to Prince Buster._________________Richard Eddington is innocent.